Price comparison web sites are currently quite popular and widely available to the general public. These sites allow a user to type in a search phrase and return results from many different retailers. Examples of such sites can be seen at www.Bizrate.com, www.PriceGrabber.com, and www.NextTag.com. These and other comparison sites only search and compile data regarding products and prices that are available for sale to the general public. These and other sites and shopping services do not and cannot provide comparison pricing that is available from wholesale distributors and vendors.
Independent retailers such as pharmacies, restaurants and others often buy items for resale from a specific group of wholesalers available in a geographic region. Retailers will frequently negotiate a purchase agreement with a primary wholesaler whereby the retailer agrees to buy a specified percentage of all purchases through the wholesaler in exchange for discount pricing, rebates, etc. In exchange for this purchase commitment, the independent retailer is granted special pricing, but this special pricing can vary greatly from retailer to retailer depending on the retailer's annual purchase volume, specific contractual obligations, buying group membership, chain code affiliation, available wholesaler stock, manufacturer/vendor promotions, expiration date of the product and other factors.
Once the retailer has a purchase agreement with a wholesaler, he generally takes it on faith that he is getting the best price, and while most retailers have a secondary and tertiary backup wholesaler, they do not aggressively compare prices because it is not convenient. Retailers are known to purchase large quantities of an item that are suddenly offered at very special reduced prices only to learn later that the same item was available from one of their alternate wholesalers at a lower price.
Some retailers with commitments to buy a specified percentage of total purchases from their primary wholesaler are reluctant to even purchase from a secondary wholesaler because they do not have a convenient method to quickly compare the savings from buying the secondary wholesaler item with the loss of rebate from the primary wholesaler.
If a retailer wants to seek out the best available price for an item, the retailer would have to manually check for a price at each contracted wholesaler's web site, through a POS (point of sale) system, an electronic price list, via telephone or even manually looking the item up in a catalog. This is a tedious and time consuming task for the retailer. The information returned in each of the previous examples would need to be compiled into a standardized list to be properly evaluated by the retailer. Consequently, retailers frequently continue buying from their primary wholesaler and assume they are getting the best price or at least a fair price, unaware of the savings available through another source and unable or unwilling to take the time and effort to compare prices.
Many wholesalers offer their retail customers product and price search capabilities on their websites. In order for the retailer to access this confidential information, each site usually requires unique user names and passwords. These unique user names and passwords can be created, maintained and recalled for each wholesale account.
What is needed is a method and system for automatically and rapidly compiling confidential pricing data from specifically contracted wholesalers in a manner that can be quickly and easily evaluated by the independent retailer. In so doing, the retailer is able to make an informed purchase decision.